AMA with IndexZoo, DeFi Tokenized Index
Primer: Polygon DeFi Advocate Zaunzi speaks with Marshall Chang, Founder and CEO of IndexZoo. IndexZoo is a multi-chain ecosystem that offers indexes and leverage tokens. Find out more about their project in this AMA.
Background
Marshall
Came from traditional finance. Background in quant trading and machine learning development
Before this, his team launched a company that trades the forex markets
Got into the crypto rabbit hole during DeFi Summer
Wanted to hedge against market downturns on-chain
Launched IndexZoo to address this need in the market
“But DeFi really showed me what's possible just to have everything down on the blockchain, and just be able to trust the smart contracts to do everything.”
- Marshall Chang
Team
Have been a team since 2017 at their forex trading firm
Some of them were college classmates
Have 6 full-time team members
IndexZoo
Value Proposition Of Indexes
Indexes can make money in both directions
Indexes allow people to hedge against a bear market
Users do not need to worry about liquidations
Their contracts will be open for customization (e.g. create any sort of basket, leverage, etc.)
How Are The Indexes Constructed?
Product line consists of 3X and 5X products
Their 3X products. It is enabled by lending protocols
Received a grant from Aave DAO
Their product borrows from Aave to get the leverage and rebalances as people buy/sell the leverage token
Users pay a streaming fee for the gas fee and token rebalancing
Their 5X products are enabled by Perpetual Protocol. Trades will be settled in USDC
Ecosystem Indexes
Offers Ecosystem Indexes that consist of the top projects in a given ecosystem
The mandate of each index is to capture the growth of the whole ecosystem
Customised Indexes
It’s easier for people to manage and has an inbuilt rebalancing mechanism
The composition percentage of each token can be decided by the creator
Indexes are fully collateralized with the underlying tokens
Indexes can be bought by others who are interested in copy-trading you/social trading
They are building on top of Token Sets, which are one of the most battle-tested infrastructures
Leverage Token
The Bull and the Bear tokens are to long and short, respectively
It consists of 3X leverage
Products are not live yet
Their leverage token product line is offered on Polygon so as to minimize gas fees
Other Products
Fear token — for traders to trade market volatility
Working with several options protocols to structure an on-chain volatility index
Building an institutional trading portal
Building a portal for people to create their own index/leverage tokens
Index Tokens Being Utilized As A Collateral
Possible, if the index tokens grow big enough
“The promise with DeFi is that anyone can create those indexes and if your product’s good enough, it will get picked up, you get a decent following, and you'll be able to just go from there.”
- Marshall Chang
IndexZoo DAO
Fees from their products go to their DAO
DAO distributes 100% of profits to token holders
Security
The audit results are coming
Wanted to have at least 1 audit before their beta launch
Their leverage tokens automatically rebalance so that it matches the correct leverage profile
Native Token
Will not just be a governance token. Want to have the profit distribution aspect built into it
They are more decentralized than their competitors
Very keen to distribute their token and profits back to token holders
Roadmap
Next phase for DeFi is DeFi 3.0 — derivative trading
The index space will grow as more people enter the space
Will be building the Bear and the Bull products
Have announced lots of partners from different blockchains
How Can People Get Involved?
Join their Discord
Have an NFT giveaway before their product launch
Their product will be launched soon
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.